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Background: In today's health care environment, developing expertise and making good decisions can be challenging when confronted with demands for high performance, high productivity, and low cost. Mindfulness may be a practice that can promote expertise and improve decision making, despite the pressures faced by occupational and physical therapists. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore and examine the potential relationships between expertise, mindfulness, and decision making. Methods: Occupational and physical therapists participated in a two-part study that included both quantitative and qualitative methodology. Seventy-five therapists completed a demographic questionnaire, a modified version of the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS-M), and the Peer-Rated Expertise in Occupational and Physical Therapy Scale (PREOPT). In the second part of the study, four therapists completed a case study using a think aloud protocol. Their verbalizations were analyzed, using verbal protocol, for trends and patterns that would reveal differences in the therapists' decision making processes. Results: Results of the first part of the study did not reveal a significant relationship between mindfulness, measure by the KIMS-M and expertise, measured by the PREOPT. Qualitative analysis suggests that mindfulness may affect therapists' approaches to decision making but does not indicate that these approaches result in better decision making. Further, the differences were surprising, as they were not consistent with current arguments about the effects of mindfulness. Conclusion: These preliminary results suggest a relationship between mindfulness and decision making approaches. However, further research is needed to confirm these observations and explore the nature of this relationship. / Educational Psychology

This study examines whether auditor industry expertise in private clients influences audit quality of public client engagements in the United States. Private companies are significant to the U.S. economy as well as audit firms. I hand-collect auditors' private client information and construct a national, city, and joint national/city specialist designation and document a 17.9 to 47.3 (12.9 to 25.8) percent decrease in a public client's likelihood to misstate their financial statements (net income earnings management) when an auditor is a private client industry specialist. I then construct and test a city specialist measure using both private and public client data and find that it is economically stronger and more robust than the public only measure commonly employed by audit researchers. This study provides evidence of the importance of private companies to an audit firm's industry expertise as well as to researchers' use of city specialist measure in audit studies. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study examines whether auditor industry expertise in private clients influences audit quality of public client engagements in the United States. Private companies are significant to the U.S. economy as well as audit firms. I hand-collect auditors' private client information and construct a national, city, and joint national/city specialist designation and find that audit quality is higher for the audit firm's public clients in the same industry. Next, I construct and test a city industry specialist measure using both private and public client data and find that it is economically stronger and more robust than the public only measure commonly employed by audit researchers. This study provides evidence of the importance of private companies to an audit firm's industry expertise as well as to researchers' use of city specialist measure in audit studies.

Environmental justice activists defined an environmental justice, or community-led, research practice as an alternative conception of science to guide epidemiological investigations of the human health effects of hazardous wastes. Activists inserted their position into an ongoing scientific controversy where multiple epidemiologies existed--environmental, dumpsite, and popular--reflecting various understandings and interests of federal and academic epidemiologists, state public health officials, and anti-toxics activists. A 1991 national symposium on health research needs and the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, established in 1993 to advise the Environmental Protection Agency, provided important locations through which activists advocated an environmental justice research approach and pressed for its adoption by relevant governmental public health institutions. The shaping of environmental justice research by activists raises intriguing issues about the role of science and expertise in political protest and the importance of democratic participation in the making of environmental policy. / Ph. D.

This dissertation traces three ethical dimensions, or values, of weather warnings in the National Weather Service (NWS): an ethic of accuracy, and ethic of care, and an ethic of resilience. Each appear in forecaster work but are not equally visible in the identity of a forecaster as scientific expert. Thus, I propose that the NWS should consider rethinking its science through its relationship to multiple publics, creating what Sandra Harding calls "strong objectivity." To this end, I offer the concept of empathic accuracy as an ethic that reflects the interrelatedness of precision and care that already attend to forecasting work. First, I offer a genealogy of the ethic of accuracy as forecasters see it. Beginning in the 1960s, operational meteorologists mounted an ethic of accuracy through the "man-machine mix," a concept that pointed to an identity of the forecasting scientist that required a demarcation between humans and technologies. It is continually troubled by the growing power of computer models to make predictions. Second, I provide an ethnographic account of the concern expressed by forecasters for their publics. I do so to demonstrate how an ethic of care exists alongside accuracy in their forecasting science, especially during times of crisis. I recreate the concern for others that their labor performs. It is an account that values emotion and is sensitive to context, showing what Virginia Held calls "the self-and-other together" that partially constitutes a forecaster identity. Third, I critique the NWS Weather Ready Nation Roadmap and its emphasis on developing in the public an ethic of resilience. I argue that, as currently framed, this ethic and its instantiation in the initiative Impact Based Decision Support Services narrowly defines community to such an extent that it disappears the public. However, it also reveals other valences of resilience that have the potential to open up a space for an empathetic accuracy. Finally, I close with a co-authored article that explores my own commitment to an ethic of relationality in disaster work and the compromises that create tension in me as a scholar and critical participant in the weather community. / Ph. D.

Research question: How do the source credibility dimensions in influencer marketing affect the Swedish consumer's purchase intentions, based on different demographics?  Purpose:  The purpose of this study is to investigate which dimensions of social media influencers' perceived credibility mostly influence the purchase intentions of Swedish consumers​. Method: Quantitative method. Results: The study found that physical and social attractiveness significantly influence Swedish consumers' purchase intentions, with trustworthiness also positively correlated but less predictive in regression analysis. Expertise did not significantly affect purchase intentions. Age correlated positively with perceived expertise and negatively with attractiveness, while educational background had no significant impact on credibility dimensions​. Conclusion: The study concludes that physical and social attractiveness significantly impact Swedish consumers' purchase intentions, with trustworthiness also important. Expertise is valued more by older consumers, indicating that influencer marketing should focus on attractiveness for younger audiences and expertise for older ones.

La voix humaine constitue la partie dominante de notre environnement auditif. Non seulement les humains utilisent-ils la voix pour la parole, mais ils sont tout aussi habiles pour en extraire une multitude d’informations pertinentes sur le locuteur. Cette expertise universelle pour la voix humaine se reflète dans la présence d’aires préférentielles à celle-ci le long des sillons temporaux supérieurs. À ce jour, peu de données nous informent sur la nature et le développement de cette réponse sélective à la voix. Dans le domaine visuel, une vaste littérature aborde une problématique semblable en ce qui a trait à la perception des visages. L’étude d’experts visuels a permis de dégager les processus et régions impliqués dans leur expertise et a démontré une forte ressemblance avec ceux utilisés pour les visages. Dans le domaine auditif, très peu d’études se sont penchées sur la comparaison entre l’expertise pour la voix et d’autres catégories auditives, alors que ces comparaisons pourraient contribuer à une meilleure compréhension de la perception vocale et auditive. La présente thèse a pour dessein de préciser la spécificité des processus et régions impliqués dans le traitement de la voix. Pour ce faire, le recrutement de différents types d’experts ainsi que l’utilisation de différentes méthodes expérimentales ont été préconisés. La première étude a évalué l’influence d’une expertise musicale sur le traitement de la voix humaine, à l’aide de tâches comportementales de discrimination de voix et d’instruments de musique. Les résultats ont démontré que les musiciens amateurs étaient meilleurs que les non-musiciens pour discriminer des timbres d’instruments de musique mais aussi les voix humaines, suggérant une généralisation des apprentissages perceptifs causés par la pratique musicale. La seconde étude avait pour but de comparer les potentiels évoqués auditifs liés aux chants d’oiseaux entre des ornithologues amateurs et des participants novices. L’observation d’une distribution topographique différente chez les ornithologues à la présentation des trois catégories sonores (voix, chants d’oiseaux, sons de l’environnement) a rendu les résultats difficiles à interpréter. Dans la troisième étude, il était question de préciser le rôle des aires temporales de la voix dans le traitement de catégories d’expertise chez deux groupes d’experts auditifs, soit des ornithologues amateurs et des luthiers. Les données comportementales ont démontré une interaction entre les deux groupes d’experts et leur catégorie d’expertise respective pour des tâches de discrimination et de mémorisation. Les résultats obtenus en imagerie par résonance magnétique fonctionnelle ont démontré une interaction du même type dans le sillon temporal supérieur gauche et le gyrus cingulaire postérieur gauche. Ainsi, les aires de la voix sont impliquées dans le traitement de stimuli d’expertise dans deux groupes d’experts auditifs différents. Ce résultat suggère que la sélectivité à la voix humaine, telle que retrouvée dans les sillons temporaux supérieurs, pourrait être expliquée par une exposition prolongée à ces stimuli. Les données présentées démontrent plusieurs similitudes comportementales et anatomo-fonctionnelles entre le traitement de la voix et d’autres catégories d’expertise. Ces aspects communs sont explicables par une organisation à la fois fonctionnelle et économique du cerveau. Par conséquent, le traitement de la voix et d’autres catégories sonores se baserait sur les mêmes réseaux neuronaux, sauf en cas de traitement plus poussé. Cette interprétation s’avère particulièrement importante pour proposer une approche intégrative quant à la spécificité du traitement de la voix. / The human voice is the most meaningful sound category of our auditory environment. Not only is the human voice the carrier of speech, but it is also used to extract a wealth of relevant information on the speaker. Voice-sensitive areas have been identified along the superior temporal sulci of normal adult listeners. Yet little data is available on the nature and development of this selective response to voice. In the visual domain, a vast literature focuses on a similar problem regarding face perception. Several studies have identified processes and regions involved in visual expertise, demonstrating a strong resemblance to those used for faces. In the auditory domain, very few studies have compared voice expertise to expertise for other sound categories. Such comparisons could contribute to a better understanding of voice perception and hearing. This thesis aims to clarify the nature of the processes and regions involved in voice perception. Different types of experts and different experimental methods were used in three separate studies. The first study assessed the influence of musical expertise on timbre voice processing, by using using behavioral voice and musical instrument discrimination tasks. The results showed that amateur musicians performed better than non-musicians in both tasks, suggesting a generalization of auditory abilities associated with musical practice. The second study compared event related potentials evoked by birdsongs in bird experts and non-expert participants. Because a different topographical distribution was observed among bird experts in all sound categories, a definitive interpretation was difficult to make. In the third study, we asked whether the voice-sensitive areas would be recruited by different categories of sounds of expertise in guitar makers, bird experts and non-experts. The behavioral data showed an interaction between the two groups of experts and their respective category of expertise for memory and discrimination tasks. The functional magnetic resonance imaging results showed an interaction of the same type in the left superior temporal sulcus and the left posterior cingulate gyrus. The results show that the voice selective areas do not exclusively process voice stimuli but could also contribute to expert-level processing of other sound categories. Therefore, cortical selectivity to human voice could be due to a prolonged exposure to voice. The data presented demonstrate several behavioral and anatomo-functional similarities between cerebral voice processing and other types of auditory expertise. These common aspects can be explained by a functional and economical brain organization. Consequently, sound processing would rely on shared neural networks unless necessary. This interpretation is particularly important to suggest an integrative approach for studying voice processing specificity.